The Recap for TNA Impact Wrestling 6.9.2011, taped from the Impact Zone in Orlando, FL.

Remember, TNA's horrible-show streak is now at 3 weeks. Let's see if they can extend it today!

They start with a recap of last week as Hogan and Bischoff make their way down to the ring. Hogan says that the Network finally woke up and realized their representative had an agenda of his own, and fired him. He assures us that nothing's changed. Not what I needed to hear. Bischoff talks about the fact that Foley did have a few decent ideas, like the name of the show and the "Wrestling Matters" campaign, so they are here to stay. Bischoff mentions that the Network loves the X-Division and promises to present them in a "fair and balanced" manner. Bischoff wants to address the Slammiversary main event, so he calls out Anderson and Sting. Hogan says he gave his word to the network and he meant it - there will no gimmicks, no agendas, no run-ins during the main event. What about the rest of the card? He promises a clear winner and loser. "If you have a problem with it, speak now." Anderson explains that he's been mocking Sting because everything Sting does is a joke. He says he's in it for himself and that he's going to become TNA Champ come Slammiversary. Maybe having Anderson say "Asshole" twice every sentence is TNA's idea of being different, but I could be wrong about that. Sting says he has extra motivation because his title is the only thing that stops Hogan and Bischoff from making a mockery of TNA. He still has a lot to do, apparently. He says Bischoff is the parasite that has brought Hogan down and Hogan has to "cut the cancer". He tells Hogan to rid of Bischoff or he "will be a thorn in your side for a long time." 0 for 1. They tried hard with this. But the whole point of it was to say nothing's changed - Hogan is still in control and now they're pushing in the direction of Hogan v Bischoff. Sting maybe should've focused more on the title defense he has coming up in a couple of days.

Match 1: Angelina Love and Winter v Mickie James and Tara: Tara has her bike back, and Mickie's apparently ok about being run over by Tara a few months ago. Winter and Angie are implied lesbians. The faces double team on Winter for a bit to start and Tara gets a sideslam for 2. Angelina decides that she wants a piece of Mickie so she tags in, but falls victim to a double team. Angie is in full Undertaker mode today. Tara accidentally distracts the ref, allowing the heels to work over Mickie for a bit. She starts a comeback but it gets nowhere as Angie comes in off a blind tag. Mickie gets a dropkick but suddenly it all breaks down as Madison Rayne heads down to distract Tara. That gives Angie the chance to get that Kobashi Backbreaker for the win in 5 minutes. 0 for 2. It wasn't offensively bad, but given the talent it should've been better. Angelina was probably the best worker in that match, and that's not a good thing. While not at the same horrible level of the knockouts matches involving Tessmacher, or any of the Divas matches in the past few weeks, it still wasn't very good. Postmatch, Angelina chokes out Mickie.

Backstage, Robert Roode talks about how Shelley might be the best person to take his place. He warns them about Mexican America, who they face tonight, because there's four of them. Yeah, I'd take Mexican America more seriously if they hadn't already been jobbed out.

Mexican America rants about being held down by Gringos. Hernandez screams something in Spanish, which I assume is him cursing out management for jobbing them out. They say they're tired of getting less every time. They're not asking for title shots, they're going out and *getting* them.

The announcers tell us about a brawl between Joe and Crimson, and throw it to the video. It seems to be a bar-room brawl, complete with cursing. The cool idea here is that it's shot on a camera phone. Joe mostly destroys Crimson, who doesn't know how to sell it. Yeah, all the hallmarks of Goldberg are right there. No wonder TNA's pushing this dude. 1 for 3. The promo work was decent, and set up the tag match for tonight pretty nicely. The bar-room brawl was different, and in a good way, though my opinion of Crimson is rapidly going from neutral to bad.

Jeff Jarrett arrives and ignores an interviewer who asks him about Karen.

Match 2: Gun Money v Mexican America: British Invasion are on commentary and they keep cutting to them every 10 seconds. Storm does an excellent job adopting some MCMG offense into his repertoire, and they dominate Mexican America until Shelley gets caught with the Springboard Shoulderblock. Hernandez misses a splash from the top, and it's time for the hot tag! Storm cleans house on Anarquia and gets the Last Call, but the girls distract the ref. Sarita gets beer in the face, but Shelley accidentally superkicks Storm to allow Anarquia to sneak the pin in 5 minutes. 2 for 4. Decent match, though the bickering of Taz and BI on commentary took away from the in-ring stuff.

Gunner heads to Anderson's room to prepare for the tag tonight. Anderson tells him that he's stepping on his coattails. Way to endear yourself to your partner, there, Anderson! Guess he's learned nothing from the Miz-Riley situation. Anderson lays out the plan, which is to hurt Sting. Anderson does imply that he'll return the favor at some point.

Mexican America storms into Hogan's room to demand a tag title shot. Hogan predictably doesn't take that too well and says even though he's not racist, they should not tell him what to do. He then gets off a line about becoming the Terminator that went completely over my head. Mexican America promises to do something when he least expects it.

Jeff Jarrett heads to the ring for some promo time, followed by Kurt Angle. Jarrett says they're not going to go back and forth; Angle is going to just listen to him. JJ says it was a huge mistake by Angle's previous employers to let him go. Jeff stepped aside so Kurt could become a star in TNA, but he didn't get a 'thank you.' Jeff then put a plan in place, to take everything away from Kurt - his wife, his kids, his integrity. Jeff says he's the better wrestler, after having beaten Angle a bunch of times. The only thing left is the medals, and Jeff will have them after Slammiversary, proving that Jarrett is the better man. Angle thanks him for doing something he could not do before - removing Karen from his life. All Kurt wants is a one-on-one match. He will let his wrestling do the talking, and Jarrett will find out how real it really is. 3 for 5. While taking barely-concealed jabs at the WWE is not the best thing TNA could do, this promo did a decent job of setting up the Angle/Jarrett match.

ODB promises to take out Velvet Sky.

Bully Ray is in the ring, talking about how he'll be the last man standing, because he's a real man. And he's doing what any real man would do - throw out an open challenge. It's open for everyone other than Devon, of course. RVD answers, so it leads to...

Match 3: Rob Van Dam v Bully Ray: RVD spends too long posing and gets Powerbombed as a result. Ray dominates until RVD gets some kicks to push him off. Monkey Flip fails and Ray takes over again with repeated elbow drops. Ray spots AJ Styles in the crowd and gets distracted long enough for RVD to foil a Piledriver, get a springboard kick, and the ***** Frog Splash for the win in 4 minutes. 3 for 6. Not much of a match but a decent angle to move things with Ray/AJ forward. It really should take more than three moves and four minutes to beat Ray, though.

Velvet Sky answers ODB's accusations by accusing her of basically the same things, saying she has a worse character. Right then.

Kaz and Brian Kendrick find Abyss reading The Art of War again. Abyss says he doesn't need Janice anymore and challenges both of them to a title match at the PPV. Kaz is excited at the prospect of a triple-threat, but Kendrick is less so. He starts with a rant of sorts, so Kaz just leaves. I think Janice is more over than Kendrick at this point.

Match 4: ODB v Velvet Sky: ODB is not under contract, and so must enter from ringside. Velvet jumps her and kicks her ass until ODB turns the tide and slams her into the steel steps. Inside that gets 2. This match is catfighting and cursing thinly disguised as brawling. Velvet gains the upper hand and the fight spills to the outside. That doesn't go well for Velvet, but back inside, ODB spends too long arguing with the ref, allowing Velvet to kick away in the corner. Announcers are more interested in making stupid jokes. They go outside-inside again, so ODB gets pissed and kills her with a Fallaway Slam. ODB goes to her trusty choke, only to fall victim to a DDT in 5 minutes. 3 for 7. It wasn't really a match and it went too long on top of that. Hopefully this ends the feud and Velvet can move herself into something more meaningful.

Eric Young and Sting and backstage and EY is interested in unifying the titles. He wants to be Intergalactic Champion! That *does* sound pretty badass. Sting doesn't have a sense of humor, though, so he starts yelling at EY. He wants him to put aside the jokes and the comedy and let the competitor come out, if only for one night.

Match 5: Gunner and Mr. Anderson v Sting and Eric Young: Gunner dominates Sting in the early going until he gets reversed and eats a few Stinger Splashes. Anderson provides the cheapshot and takes over. Gunner comes in with an abdominal stretch as the commentators try hard to make me care about him. Sting makes a comeback and hot tags EY, who dominates Gunner. Anderson tries to interfere but gets dropkicked for his troubles. Gunner pushes EY into Sting, which constitutes a tag. Sting eats an F5 and it's game over for him in 5 minutes. Urgh. 3 for 8. Oh, where to start with this? It lasted 5 minutes. It was dominated by the jobbers. Sting ate the pin. It attempted to turn Gunner into a star. The main event of the PPV is Sting/Anderson, and not Gunner/Sting, which TNA seem to have forgotten, along with many other things.

Backstage, EY asks Sting if they would win if he changed his name to 'Gunner.' AJ talks about bullies being balloons again, only to see Ray. He starts after him, but security is there to keep them apart. Anderson laughs his head off at Gunner getting the pin, but Sting spots him. Anderson tries to bail but runs into a trailer, allowing Sting to "brawl" with him. No sign of security. Maybe they're still busy keeping AJ and Ray apart. Sting smears red paint on his face, as apparently he has snapped. Sting puts Anderson in a sleeper to end the show. 3 for 9. That brawl was ultra-weak and I'm not a fan of the rapid-fire promos after the main event.

End show.

Wrestling Counter: 24 minutes.

The Score: 3 for 9: The streak continues. This was not quite as awful as last week but it wasn't anything approaching good either. They did do a decent job of pushing their PPV matches, but most it was mired in a cluster of bad wrestling, bad booking, and illogical storylines.

I feel like we're hurtling towards a Sting/Hogan match that no-one gives a crap about. The only question is whether or not they get the title off of Sting beforehand. Given how Sting keeps emphasising that the title is the one thing between Hogan and total domination of TNA, I fear that they're going for "one match, all the marbles" kind of deal.

Everything else is just noise. It's amazing how they've taken a guy in Anderson, who had finally started to turn his detractors around on him, and just flushed away everything good about him over the past month. He's just a total non-entity right now.

I actually liked the Velvet/ODB brawl since I am a big fan of just all over the place fights. Gunner pinning Sting would be a big or could be a big deal if they had actually ended the show with that. Instead, we get Sting putting make-up on Anderson. I love both guys, but this is not PPV buy worthy. Slammiversary is one of their top tier PPVs and it somehow has the look of every PPV since February. They should have ended either Sting/Anderson or Kurt/JJ early to at least give them something new for this PPV. The other problem is the injuries in the tag division has not helped them at all. British Invasion vs. MCMG or Beer Money would be awesome, but against a hybrid of MCMG and Beer Money may be bad.

The only good to come out of Slamiversary is if we get Anderson/Kurt which was a MOTYC last year and could be a great feud. Yet, I think Amos is right, we will get Sting/Hogan for all the marbles and Hogan will win thus killing Impact or TNA or whatever they call themselves, dead in the water. My giant hope and at this point false hope is we get the end of Angelian& Wynter, AJ/Bully and most of the feuds going on right now and start with a clean slate this Monday at the tapings, but I just don't see that happening. Crimson over Joe is going to suck big time.

This show gets worse by the week. It is amazing how far things have gone downhill since Hogan arrived. All of the staples of TNA are being removed.

-AJ is slumming with Bully Ray.

-Daniels...uh...is he gone again.

-Joe is being used as fodder for a musclehead that Hogan is fawning over (and possible blowing).

-X-Division title is on a guy that even hardcore TNA fans don't defend, but he's big, so therefore is better. Oh, and the title has possibly been change to the "Extreme" title, so that we can drag the dead horse of ECW a few more miles.

Perhaps they are building up Hogan taking the belt from Sting, only for Sting to be avenged by his Bladerunner brother in paint Warrior? Warrior/Hogan was the last time Nitro beat RAW, thus, since it has been 13 years and both guys are decrepit, it must be a huge money maker.

Originally posted by redsoxnationPerhaps they are building up Hogan taking the belt from Sting, only for Sting to be avenged by his Bladerunner brother in paint Warrior? Warrior/Hogan was the last time Nitro beat RAW, thus, since it has been 13 years and both guys are decrepit, it must be a huge money maker.

They were decrepit even 13 years ago; now that they're even more decrepit, SMELL THE RATINGS~!

"Whoever you are, you stopped being relevant about five minutes after I apparently told you to run."--Shepard, Mass Effect 2

Originally posted by redsoxnationPerhaps they are building up Hogan taking the belt from Sting, only for Sting to be avenged by his Bladerunner brother in paint Warrior? Warrior/Hogan was the last time Nitro beat RAW, thus, since it has been 13 years and both guys are decrepit, it must be a huge money maker.

They were decrepit even 13 years ago; now that they're even more decrepit, SMELL THE RATINGS~!

But at least we'll finally get closure on the One Warrior Nation angle!